I enjoyed it, but many people didn't like the Japanese release because the battle system was remarkably unbalanced. After a point you were just far too strong. Of course, the reason for the North American delay was to rebalance the system, so hopefully this point will be fixed. It would be unwise to compare the Japanese reviews to the North American version because they are "polishing" it, so to speak.

I'm looking forward to this. Unfortunately, hype and info on this has been light on the North American side (or maybe that's a good thing). I paged through the japanese site a bit and it at least looks like there's some customization options for the characters. I don't know enough japanese to really read all the details without a few reference materials and a couple asprins, though. :(

At least the gameplay videos make it look like fun. The teddy bear looking character (Taupy, is it?) looks oddly badass.

The dungeon designs look pretty dreadful from the few map screenshots of them I've seen. Very... lots of twisty corridors and dead-ends. Very aimless and non-interactive looking. Also it sounds like the battle system is pretty similar to XG's where you can basically just mash the best attack combo all the time, rendering the entire setup sort of pointless. Which... makes sense given the aforementioned balance issues, and I do question whether or not the US localization re-balancing efforts are going to matter much because:

A) If it's like XG, the problem's just inherent to the system. Re-balancing would require more... semi-refactoring things than just tweaking them. (Although, XG specifically didn't really have anything resembling balancing from the get-go, so the fact their considering this is sort of promising, but...)B) Isn't Sega funding this? When was the last time Sega HASN'T half-assed something?

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

B) Isn't Sega funding this? When was the last time Sega HASN'T half-assed something?

Valkyria Chronicles? Bayonetta? The Yakuza series? Thunder Force VI? Infinite Space? Shining Force Feather? Heck even Panzer Dragoon Orta and Sakura Taisen V if you want to go back a bit further. Sega have pumped out a lot of crap over the last couple of years, and haven't exactly been kind to fans of some of their flagship series. Phantasy Star's rebirth as an online RPG was interesting initially but has grown a bit tiresome, Shining Force hardly even managed the 'interesting initially' part (though the Flight Plan developed SRPG Feather is pretty neat) and Sonic kinda goes without saying. That being said, I think people give them more crap than they deserve, and tend to forget that they've released plenty of quality titles amidst the junk, both as a publisher and a developer.

As for World Destruction, I liked it quite a bit. The battle system is a little unbalanced, but it's fun enough, and the game as a whole is a nice throwback to PSX-era RPGs. Still, you shouldn't go in expecting Xenogears. Not that it's necessarily worse, but while it shares a similar look and many of the same big names, there are a few key differences. Firstly, Mitsuda only composed part of the soundtrack. It's still very nice, but it's not quite the 'return of the king' that much of the advertising has made it out to be, as he was only one of several contributors. Secondly though, and much more importantly, Tetsuya Takahashi is absent. That might not be such a bad thing for some people, as I know that many aren't fans of his gratuitous religious and philosophical references and stupidly convoluted storytelling. Still, for all the staff World Destruction shares with Xenogears, he was really the driving force behind it from a story standpoint. And World Destruction definitely has a very different feel to the Xeno games as a result. It's basically much more Masato Kato than Tetsuya Takahashi.

Actually Clover did Bayonetta for the 360, and Sega did the PS3 version - which is apparently half-assed.

I meant that they published it, as I had thought Platinum Games developed both versions. Fair point on them half-assing the PS3 one, though. I guess that kinda cancels out the brownie points they get for publishing it to begin with. :P

And World Destruction definitely has a very different feel to the Xeno games as a result. It's basically much more Masato Kato than Tetsuya Takahashi.

Actually, it's much more Ryouei Mikage than Kato, who was simply contracted to provide the original plot. The final script isn't even Kato's.

Calling this the Xenogears staff would be akin to assembling your own team of indie developers, contracting Jeremy Soule for a few music tracks, contracting Mike Kirkbride to provide some pieces of promotional art (Kunihiko Tanaka only did a couple character designs for marketing purposes), contracting Ted Peterson to help with world design, and then claiming that your game is made by the creators of Morrowind. In reality, your game is only a Morrowind knock-off made by a newbie team with the help of a few original personnel.

It's a plain lie, and Japanese players called Mikage out on it. Sands of Destruction is simply a Xenogears-inspired RPG created by a fan (who portrays himself as some kind of industry legend these days) who successfully established and promoted his development company.

Well, I'm playing through it now, and I have only one thing to say so far.

Holy shit this game has way too many long-ass voiced cutscenes. And you can't even skip the text! The only way to progress quickly is to skip entire -scenes- at a time, which means you miss information. This is not the way to make a portable RPG, Sega.